AN: Ask and ye shall receive. Eventually. Apologies for the delay, it was October-Scarecrow's favourite time of the year. Due to the sheer volume of 'guest reviews', I do have to ask: are you all the same guest, or different guests? I MUST KNOW.
Theirs isn't exactly a normal relationship. In all honesty, most people looking in would be horrified. To be fair, most people are sane, and don't find it at all funny when someone gets stabbed with a pen, or gets beaten into unconsciousness with a duck-headed fire poker.
But every so often, normal things happen. They cook together-nothing fancy, not after the disaster with the blowtorch-they watch documentaries, they shop for curtains.
Okay, maybe most people don't shop for curtains because the last set got bloodstained. But it still counts.
Right now, for instance, the casual observer would think was out of place. The curtains are clean, the lamp shows no signs of having been used as a weapon, and any handcuffs and knives are hidden away.
On the couch (black, easier to hide any questionable marks that way) sit two people. Right now, with one of them reading and the other asleep, there is no indicator that anything is wrong with them. Looking at them, they look harmless. Even if they were inclined to kill you, surely you could fight them off.
She's immersed in a New York Times bestseller (it sucks, but at least she can say that she read it and hated it). One hand holds the paperback, and the other hand is resting on the man's head. He's apparently asleep, his hand hanging off the couch, his fingers brushing the (black) rug below.
Perfectly normal.
Unfortunately, the people on the couch are not normal, not at all. She's happy to slip a bit of cyanide into your nightcap, but she's not above beating you unconscious with a bat should it come to that. He's a lousy shot, but it doesn't matter. That's what knives are for. He's often considered keeping a souvenir, like his namesake, but they're messy and keeping a pickled ear is too strange, even for him.
He moves, rolling over and winding up with a palm on his face.
"Jill."
"I'm reading."
"Your palm is by my mouth."
"I'm reading. Talk again and I'll rip your tongue out."
He shoves her hand up and gets flicked on the forehead.
"Thanks."
"I'm reading. Shut up."
He huffs and happens to see a spot of dried blood on the ceiling. Oops. Maybe they should have tried strangling their would-be assassin, rather than…yeah.
Oh, well. They'll get it tomorrow.
Outside, the rain falls down.
THE END